OutRun arcade game actually drives on the road

Way back in the day I was all about the driving arcade games. When the parents took me to Chuck E Cheese I waited in line and blew most of my tokens on OutRun and other driving games. I always thought it would be awesome if you could really drive like that video game and apparently, some other geeks did too. Some researchers at the University of California at Irvine used research as an excuse to live out their childhood driving game on the street fantasies.

The gang took an old Arcade version of OutRun where you sit down and actually mounted the game to a chassis that can move down the road. You sit behind the games screen and when you are on the streets, you steer the car looking at the screen rather than what is really in front of you.

The project is supposed to be some sort of research into informatics systems that might assist the disabled in driving and in other things. I think they just wanted to play an arcade game for real, and I am fine with that. Check out the video below to see it in action. I'm thinking the glare on the arcade game screen is the reason the dude has to keep looking around the game screen to see where he is going.